My husband has recently given up alcohol. I know, right. I was just as shocked as you guys.

This decision was made after we had an incident with our teenage son that forced us to reevaluate the example we were setting as parents.

For us it was quite normal to drink wine most nights with dinner and to have friends over on the weekend for a barbecue, which would more often than not turn into a late night drinking session. This was also how we had grown up, and how our parents had grown up and so this behaviour had been perpetuated from generation to generation.

A legacy we don’t want to pass on

The other night Mr almost-17 went to a party with a friend. My husband had specifically asked them to not go near any alcohol, particularly as his said friend was supposed to be under our supervision and we didn’t take that responsibility lightly. We’re aware that they are at an age when their peers are experimenting with alcohol, and that is very scary as a parent.

When they arrived home that night they were clearly not expecting us to be awake. They were stumbling around, completely legless. When we quizzed him as to why he thought this was appropriate behaviour, Mr almost-17 simply responded, “Well, you guys do it.”

While we could have argued that there’s a big difference between 37 and 17, and that it’s illegal to drink under the age of 18, the fact of the matter was that what he said was true, and that we were asking him to not do something that we were doing ourselves.

Reevaluating our influence

It’s very confronting to come to the realisation that kids tend to do what you do, not what you say. We knew that parenthood and sacrifice are supposed to go hand in hand but somehow, perhaps we had lost sight of the gravity of this responsibility. It took this event to remind us that we are one of the main examples our kids have of how to live life: there’s no getting away from that fact.

Gulp! I’m starting to feel guilty about my mummy wine time now.

The money, clothes, holidays and education we slave away to give to our kids are nothing compared to the example we give them as humans and the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do,” keeps coming back to haunt me, because I can see clearly that it doesn’t work! It didn’t work for my parents and sure isn’t working for me.